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So I said I’d try to do blog posts from the past and from now. The last one was a now one, and this one is about inpatient. I’ve had a pretty bad little while so have put of posting this. It’s a kinda sad post, and I didn’t want to think about the sad. Re-reading it, it’s ridiculous how emotionally detached I become when trying to explain how I’ve felt. Everything is a load of facts and logic. I was told by a social worker that it’s actually a problem for me. Emotionally connecting to events. I emotionally feel things and think other things. The emotions and the facts don’t connect. I duno if that’s true, but this is from early December 2013. It’s probably not that enjoyable, but it’s there to read if you want.

So I tried to kill myself. A shit load of diazepam and a shit load of alcohol. I wound up in A&E, in and out of consciousness. When I was medically stable, I talked to the psych staff in the majors ward and was asked to go to an inpatient mental health ward.

After 13 hours in A&E and several instances of self harm (some requiring stitches), I was put in an ambulance and moved to a mental hospital. There was another girl there with her Mum, but I didn’t want anyone to come with me. I wanted to be alone. She looked scared though, so I’m glad she had someone. I was scared too.

I’d already hidden razor blades in places where no one found them. And lighters. When they searched me, they found nothing. I gave them one one blade to look genuine, but kept the other eight. I’m not going to go into hiding places because it might give ideas, but I had them on me, as well as a stocks of first aid stuff from A&E, so I could still self harm there, and I did. Even though I was on every fifteen minutes, then moved up to twenty four hour supervision after I spoke with a consultant. They tried to take my shoe laces and the strings out of my hoodies, but I convinced them style was too important to me, even though I knew it kept me the option of killing myself.

It was terrifying to start with. Being searched. Being made to wait with people you’ve never met. I met this great BPD girl though whom I’m starting to make friends with. She made me feel safe. I respect her for that, regardless of her issues, but I guess that’s because they are basically mine. She’s safe though. And made me feel safer.

The first ward I was on was the first with a bed, although technically I shouldn’t have been there due to me not fitting into its catchment area. The ward itself wasn’t so bad. The beds were a bit uncomfy, but it was clean and you had your own en suite bathroom. You could still have electronic devices like phones and laptops, though the chargers were kept in a locked office and everything had to be charged in there so you had no access to cords. The lack of music was depressing, especially as it’s one of my main self soothe techniques and I was seriously distressed. My allocated nurse was lovely and really helped me with my orientation and said she’d work to keep me on that ward as I’d find it distressing to move. She also told me that if they did move me, she’d put on my notes that I’d need access to music for soothing anxiety and my macbook for uni purposes. Although we weren’t allowed lighters, we could smoke every hour, and often in between because the nurses were pretty safe. I began to feel I could be ok spending a week in that ward.

Then on my second night, whilst I was sleeping, a nurse came in and told me a bed had become available in the ward that took in those from my catchment area and I had five minutes to pack up and move. I was distressed, tired and crying. My lovely allocated nurse had gone home so I couldn’t even look to her for help. Luckily, the girl I arrived with and the girl I’d made friends with had to be moved too, so I wasn’t alone in my shock and distress.

Once I got down to the other ward, everything got worse. They took my phone, my iPad, my macbook, my 3DS. All because they had cameras. They also took my make up because most of it had mirrors in it, and my perfumes because they came in glass bottles. They wanted my shoe laces and hoodie chords. All the time I was crying because I though my original nurse was supposed to help me in this scenario and I was tired and confused. I can admit my behaviour was quite extreme, but still, what do you expect from someone in an inpatient mental health ward. I asked to see the consultant because I couldn’t comprehend what was going on, but he just shouted at me “Rules are rules. You are causing too much distress. Either you discharge yourself right now, or I’ll discharge you right now.” So I got my shit together and left.

Having no where to go, I sat in the hospital courtyard crying. I ended up self harming to try and make it better, but it didn’t help. I just wanted to die. I watched the blood pool on the pavement and felt the release, but still just craved for it all to be over. I can honestly say I was on the cusp of running away. Getting out of London, maybe to the sea.

Luckily, I saw someone I knew from the Home Treatment Team (HTT) who’d always been safe to me. I called him over and he gave me a big hug and took me to A&E. I was hardly there any time, but this great guy had made some calls and got my family to agree to take me home and to be under HTT care whilst I was still in “crisis”. My Daddy came and got me. My family had tidied my room and bought me comfy pjs and tried to make me feel homely. I just wanted to go to sleep. It’s hard to sleep on a Valium detox though. It’s three thirty am right one and I’m still going.

Since being home, I’ve been seeing the HTT and they’ve been giving me the appropriate detox for my addiction so I can’t hoard tablets. They still don’t seem to have picked up on the fact I have enough aspirin to kill myself. I’ve gone back to self harming once or twice a day and am plagued by suicidal thoughts. No hope. No belief. Each day is a challenge to not just do it and get this all over with, but as I’ve said before, I have my thread of logic. I just don’t know how long that thread can last before it snaps.

The HTT are beginning to worry about not being able to keep me safe, especially as my self harm is escalating in severity and quantity and I am still actively suicidal. For now, they think it’s best to keep me in the community, but they are definitely considering putting me back into the inpatient ward from hell. It’s talked about most times they visit.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. Maybe it’ll be great, but it’ll probably just be more of the same. I don’t believe it can be better.

I wrote this in October 2013, so it’s a bit backdated, but I guess it gives a quick overview of where I’ve been and, my mental health history for anyone that might read this and not want to track back and starts to show how I got where I am I guess. Hopefully it’s not too self indulgent.

Ok so maybe this isn’t quite the worst month of my life, but it’s definitely top five. I think it’s actually quite hard to tell sometimes just what was the worst thing ever, especially in the moment. Loads of things are awful. Bereavement sucks. Being dumped sucks. Not having enough money to buy the shower gel you really wanted sucks. Maybe when you’re really old and looking back at your life you work it out. All I know is that this month has been monumentally tragic, even in comparison to a lot of my other awful times. It’s almost laughable, if it wasn’t me, In this post, I’m going to explain why.

Within the month of October 2013, I’ve been dumped by a boy I loved (who had the emotional maturity of a grapefruit), who I then got back together with for a total of four days, only to be dumped again and have him steal my pitiful amount of money. I then made that fantastic choice of fucking him, just to let him tell me how much I suck and how crazy and sad I am. Followed by him leaving the country. My housing situation is tenuous I think. Some major disagreements with the family led to me living with said boy, which has now left me living half with my family, which is difficult for them as much as for me, and living half with a drug dealer who can set me up with some tasks when I’m more than my average broke. Being broke should go on this list, but that’s pretty much a permanent. My treatment has increased – I’m now, I’m in treatment for mental health problems almost every day and I’m being offered NHS funded private rehab for at least three months. All of which means I have to face the highly likely prospect of taking yet another year out of finishing the one year masters degree I’m already in my fourth year of. Even so, I’m still barely coming to terms with the fact that I have something labelled “complex needs” by essentially all health and social care workers. This is not exactly how I imagined my life would be at 24.

Getting where I am right now has been a painfully long process. In reality, everyone’s life is just a painfully long process from birth to wherever they are now I guess. I could start my story in childhood, which my therapist says probably was invalidating and hindered my emotional development or some next drama, but it’s not important. I had a nothing but lovely childhood. My conscious awareness of some sort of emotional issue probably started in my teens. At around 13, I started drinking, smoking, getting high, liking boys and self-harming. Self-harm at that point wasn’t weird. My friends all did it too, I just took it further, and never really stopped. I think looking back, I probably was a little more nervous and a little unhappier than my peers, but at the time I wasn’t emotionally capable of looking outside my own world and hindsight is often a fallacy. I got good at self-harming, and even better at hiding it.

By 15, no one talked about it, but I still did. I also started having panic attacks all the time. I went to my GP and got my first mental health diagnosis – depression and panic disorder. Off I went to some fairly dull and pointless counselling, which may have been great if I’d engaged with it, but at 15, how many people can be fucked?

I got through college with a lot of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, self-harm and boys. I got through it well and did really quite good considering, but that life had its toll. Too many nights of too much excess in clubs I was definitely too young to be in led to me completely crashing emotionally. Just before my exams. I spent weeks in bed, ran away to Yorkshire, spent more weeks in bed and was dragged to my GP again. Again, the diagnosis was depression. This time I was prescribed Prozac (and later citalopram), told to go to the surgery counsellor and sent on my way.

I didn’t go to the counsellor. Instead, I ran off to Bristol for university. My first year of uni was properly batshit cray. Antidepressants, a change in contraceptive pill, dropping all my hobbies and friends and family to enter the horror of finding new hobbies and friends was all a little much. My self-harm and generally crazy behaviours went into overdrive and behind closed doors (but in front of my unfortunate, but ultimately a prick new boyfriend), I became the most dramatic crazy person ever. Inefficiently executed suicide attempts, blood and sharpie markers all over me and my dorm, running away, cold showers with all my clothes still on, half a litre of vodka each night, drugs wherever I could find them. It was messy, but with no follow up from my GP, it all went unnoticed.

When I finally cold turkey gave up the antidepressants at the end of summer, I was fucking miserable and doing seriously terrible at uni. I hated myself, I felt like a failure and I didn’t know what to do. Lucky for me, I quickly found losing weight. I focused myself on to eating healthy and going to the gym and found something I was good at. I was bloody fantastic at losing weight. It made me feel good. It made me feel proud. It made me feel in control (finally). So I did that, and I dropped self-harm, got substantially less trashed, was able to focus on university and slowly became more and more focused on losing weight. That went on for the next three years and I ended up seriously underweight and trapped in anorexia, obsessing over food and exercise. Still, I did good at uni and I graduated well, so started and MA.

Halfway through my MA, I became so critically ill that, after being shipped around various primary care therapy services, I was referred to a specialist eating disorders unit (EDU) and started actually getting treatment. I was so unwell, my uni boyfriend from Bristol wound up dumping me and we spent the next year and a half breaking up. Turns out he was an abusive bastard and I couldn’t see it. Years of domestic from someone I loved is pretty hard to deal with if you don’t have an eating disorder to escape from it.

For a while, I was still too unwell with anorexia to really noticed what it was providing me, so I was still focused and obsessed enough to complete all my taught units in my MA, but by my last assignment (two years after starting my MA), I was almost out of treatment with my EDU, emotionally disastrous, self-harming everyday, on and off of antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, back on antidepressants and in and out of hospital for stitches, glue and lethal overdoses (I’d got smarter since I was last like this, so way more efficient. Intelligence isn’t always a good thing). It was around this time my EDU diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder and referred me to my local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). By this point, I was too ill to even contemplate a dissertation so decided to defer my assessment.

This last year, I’ve been in dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT – specialist therapy for people with borderline), but I’ve also been honing my alcohol and Valium misuse to block out all my difficult thoughts and emotions, and topping them off with whatever other substances head my way. I went into another relationship with yet another person who doesn’t know how to treat their partner and wound up homeless, scarred, broke and an addict. I hadn’t realised I was an addict until a few weeks ago when I was told. I thought I was going to be able to finish my degree this year, have some time off and hopefully start a PGCE and I was finally letting myself get some hope that I might be able to catch up to my peers and actually set up some sort of life I can be proud of. That’s suddenly looking less likely right now. I’m now in a drug and alcohol treatment program 3-4 days a week, individual DBT once a week, group. DBT once a week, my day programme key worker once a fortnight, my Community Drug and Alcohol Team (CDAT) case worker once a fortnight, my Community Recovery Team (CRT – previously my CMHT) psychiatrist once a month and my CRT social worker at some point and some amount. And you know I might be in rehab in a few months.

So here I am. Worst. Month. Ever. I’m actually pretty fucking unhappy right now, but I’m sure that’s not exactly hard to guess. Apparently (according to mental health workers), I suffer ‘severe and enduring’ mental health problems, I’m ‘high risk’ of serious injury, physical illness or death, I’m ‘low functioning’ and have a limited ability to independently thrive within mainstream society and I have ‘complex needs.’ I guess I have got a kinda complex case – you can tell by the amount of people involved in my care (it’s got to the point where it’s overwhelming and confusing).

Still, I’m smart, articulate and jokes, plus try so hard to be nice to people. For some unknown reason, I fully believe this pessimist shit sells me short. I don’t want to be in treatment or care or whatever all my life. I think I’ve got potential. I’ve got through a lot and still have a load more to do, but maybe I can be more then all these unhelpful labels.

Anyway, I’ve blogged before, mostly about my recovery from anorexia. I didn’t realise it’d get more complicated after that and I let a lot of my real life friends read it. I’m not all that sure about sharing addiction and self harm problems with my real life friends yet is a good idea, but I don’t like hiding away. I found it really helpful blogging though, and I think maybe blogging more would be useful still. It might not be though. Or maybe I’ll be too high to look at it. We’ll see I guess.

I know I said I would blog more, but in fairness I’ve been really kinda ill. I wrote this a couple of days ago, so it’s slightly out of date. Sorry.

Firstly, I was mental health ill. I wound up in hospital again. Overdose on tranquillising prescription drugs and alcohol, plus some pretty horrid self-injury. Not good really. I don’t seem to be getting any real support from the NHS right now though, which I think is a bit of an oversight in their care. I don’t really know what I want from them, but I did kinda think the if you wind up in hospital for mental health reasons, someone should try to help you. Maybe I’m just naive.

So yer, another waste of my time being a complete idiot. I was with Gym, but he was too drunk to realise just how many sleeping tablets I was taking. I just didn’t want to feel anything. He was crying because I’d self-injured whilst he was out with his friends and it upset him so much. He was riotously drunk to be fair, but he was oscillating between telling me how much he cared and how important I am, to how he can’t just have another person fuck up his life and how I’m hurting him. We drank some wine, then he decided, in some sort of quest to make me understand, that he too should cut himself. Again, he doesn’t remember this. There was a lot of rum by this point. It got very dramatic. He was hiding razors and making demands and it wasn’t so great. Then he passed out, so I took more sleeping tablets and cut myself more dramatically, and in that stereotypically BPD way, woke him up covered in blood and crying, dripping all over my bed. To which he freaked out mode, so I took more sleeping tablets and drunk some more rum to try to numb myself out. Then I suddenly clicked that shit, this was not ok and started necking Pro Plus, coffee, Diet Coke, paracetamol plus and cold and flu tablets for the caffeine to keep myself awake and called the crisis team, who immediately sent an ambulance. By this point it was 7am and my family were waking up for work and I was struggling to walk and had to go to A&E. Obviously no one went to work that day. It was all very dramatic. They put me on some drips of some description, glued me up (badly, so some of the wounds didn’t actually close) and made me sit there till like 4pm. Once Gym had sobered up a little, he was so incredibly apologetic and tried so hard to look after me. He stayed with me for a few days to keep and eye on me and apologised for his drunken and terrible behaviour and feels a lot of guilt I think. I have a lot of guilt too. I upset my family and am dramatically pushing a boy I actually like away. Basically because I’m a dick. The glue didn’t work for some of the worst wounds, so they opened again. And stayed open. And got infected. And I had to get them dressed by a nurse at my doctor’s. Urgh. Stupid life. I hate the state I get myself into.

I’m feeling really fragile at the moment. I’m trying not to let it show. I’m trying to keep myself held together. I don’t want people to worry and I don’t want to drag anyone into my drama. I’m constant dramarama I know that, but if I keep myself together for others, then maybe I’ll get together for myself. You never know.

Then after that, I spent a little while being too damaged head to think about writing, basically until I got super physically sick. I managed to get out of bed today, but I did have to have a huge nap this afternoon. I’ve had some sort of delirious flu tonsillitis vomit mess. It was super gross. I couldn’t really see properly. Or walk. It snuck into my joints first. I was like this little old lady because my hips just proper killed and I couldn’t walk without hunching over and Gym was all like “ewww. Look at my old lady girlfriend. You’re so old” (mostly because I’m 23 and he’s 20 and he likes to remind me of this often). It was terrible as well because it hit me during a comedown and I was like ”ARGH! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?” because I had no idea what was happening to me until I realised my temperature was way high.

Something that really fucks me off is that if I’m in hospital or in bed delirious or whatever, and I don’t make therapy with IMPART, it counts against me. I’m allowed to miss up to 4 sessions in six months, but anymore than that and I’m kicked out. I missed one because I was in hospital on a drip and even though I was in hospital and called the Therapist up to tell her I wouldn’t make it, she still told me to try to get out early to get there if I could, which is actually pretty fucking dangerous to tell someone I think. Then when I had flu, I called the day before to say “I’m really ill so I don’t think I’ll make tomorrow”, to which she replied “Well just come in and have a quick session because if you don’t attend at all it’ll be one of your non-attendances.” I actually think that’s maybe a little too strict really. I mean, I get why it’s important to have attendance rules when working with people with personality disorders, but not even being allowed to be sick is a bit much I think. So is telling someone to leave hospital if they can. It’s all a bit much. Then obviously, an actually important bit of therapy in which we did a chain thing for how and why I wound up in hospital, I was out of it with a temperature and unable to focus on anything, which is pointless.

I did have my first DBT skills group yesterday though and that was surprisingly not so bad. I got there in a fucking awful mood because a) I was really ill and b) Gym said he’d take me to make sure I was ok, but then he got too stoned and fell asleep too long and his phone ran out of battery and so on so I was pissed off. It wasn’t too awful though. I ended up getting really fucking agitated and talking bares and being a bit annoying, but I think I made a good impression. The group is all women and I’m pretty sure they’re all older than me. It’s sad because it seems like they’ve all had to deal with this shit way longer than I have and they all seem way more run down if you know what I mean. It makes me happy I’m in treatment when I am, but it still really upsetting to see. I duno. Anyway, they seem nice. A lot of them have spent a lot of time in in-patient wards, which again makes me sad but they all seemed to be really friendly and open. On the group rules it said we’re not allowed to sleep with anyone in the group, which I think is a hilarious rule and it made me wonder if it’s so explicit in all group therapy situations or just when working with personality disorders. A couple of people in the group said they thought my “look” was really “stylish”, which I thought was hilarious, but I didn’t laugh because I’m trying to make sense.

Ooh and also, in between all of this, I cut my hair really short and got it dyed blonde with some purple bits in and it’s really great. Finally I got back to blonde. It’s like super short on the back and sides, with a long sweepy bit up front. It’s really great.

There’s a really annoying boy in my bed right now. The sort of boy that turns up at 6am, drunk, to tell you he misses you then ask you to be his “plus one” at his work Christmas party. I think this is a little bit ridiculous. I mean, its not entirely his fault seeing as I’m totally buff and super amazing, but still, why can’t people fucking chill? Seeing as I haven’t slept at all and he is now sleeping like a really tired, hungover person, I thought I’d catch up on some blogging.

To be honest, I’ve not been blogging much recently, in the reading and posting capacity. It’s mostly because I’m actually doing ok right now. I have my moments, but I’m spending a lot of time with my friends, boys, the Fam, at uni etc. so I am actually busy. I’ve gone from never busy to often busy. And I’m enjoying it. I really like my friends at the moment, a few in particular, and I’m getting my confidence on again so I’m actually talking to people. People are so good. Sometimes you forget, but remembering again is fun.

I’m still under the HTT, which I guess is good because I still have my unstable moments, especially when there’s any contact with the Ex. I literally cannot hack him. He completely ruins anything that makes me feel happy. I know that sounds dark, but he makes me feel so horrible. Like, I spoke to him the other day and ended up crying in Tottenham Court Road, spending £30 on stationary and buying darker hair dye purely because he likes my hair lighter, then getting home, crying, dying my hair and painting my nails black because I was angry and shouting at everyone I spoke to and self injuring. That boy has a lot to answer for when it comes to my mood. He fucks me up so much I swear. And I hate that I miss him. Cunt. And generally I’m not so rude about people. Well I am, but in a lolz way, not a serious way. This is a serious way. Still, he’s fading and I have people shaped distractions.

There is good news though. I’ve finally been seen by my new psychologist. It’s sad because I’m going to have to say goodbye to my super nang therapist who I love and actually sometimes trust, to be replaced by some next woman I don’t even know. The Psychologist is still seeing me weekly right now, but probably not for long. He wants me to write him a goodbye letter, and he will write me one and then we’ll read them to each other. All sounds a little bit too cringe for me really. I’m not sure I’m up to that challenge. I guess I’ll have to give it a go, but I so badly don’t want to :(. Plus I don’t want to say goodbye to the Psychologist because I love him so much. I hate it when people go. I’ll probably cry and look like a dick, but what can you do? I have to be ok moving on to some new therapist who might suck out and I might hate and might be really horrible. I hope she’s not, but who the fuck knows? Soon there’ll be a new the Psychologist and I just have to deal with it.

Still, this change means I no longer have to attend stupid coping stupid skills group. I hated coping skills group so much it’s ridiculous. Seriously. All the way in fucking Essex. So much travel for so little gain I swear. Plus I didn’t like the facilitator that much because she was too loud and in your face and the people in the group we’re all a lot older than me and no where near as logical and scientific thinking, so what I told them didn’t really resonate and vice versa. I don’t say that like their thinking was bad, it just wasn’t at all like mine and it made it hard to feel comfortable. Maybe that’s just me trying to rationalise my own prangs, but it is how I feel. It’s fine though because I never have to go again, which is a huge fucking relief.

But anyway, I still haven’t finished being assessed by IMPART yet. Apparently there’s only one left, but who the fuck knows really. There have been so many assessments you couldn’t imagine. In the whole process, I gained another diagnosis – panic disorder. Gotta catch ’em all in NHS mental health service. Really annoying, but I guess I already had it and now it just has a name.

I’ve been pretty open about my mental health with the sleeping boy seeing as I can’t go out in the dark by myself and he lives about 2 mins from my psychiatric hospital, but he has some pretty wafty ideas about mental health. He’s anti-medications and thinks that treatment doesn’t work and talking therapies fuck you up more and you shouldn’t have them. I didn’t really want to smash his opinions down with scientific research, statistics and generally knowing what I’m talking about because he’s only 20 and I didn’t want to be rude, but I’m sorry what the fuck? Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 25, anorexia the biggest killer of women under 25, people with psychotic disorders really fucking need their medications to stay stable, as do many people with other problems. It really bugs me. I spend so much of my life surrounded by people who either do or try to understand mental health, I forget sometimes how much people opinions can differ and be based on negative stereotypes. Still, at least he’s not rude about my mental health which I appreciate and he does try to get it. Jeez I’m such an over-sharer. He is a bed teef though, which makes him supes annoying.

Blah anyway I’m babbling away, losing my point. Standard though. This is what happens when you don’t plan your blog posts properly. I really should get some sort of structure to my blog. Except I can’t be fucked really. Maybe I’ll do it sometime. It really doesn’t help that I literally haven’t slept at all. No amount of sedatives stops insomnia anymore. Annoying.

The most important thing to mention in this post is the absolute brilliance that is ADVENT!!!! Which means advent calendars and lots of alcohol and festive spirit and mince pies and fun times and everyone is happy and it’s my favourite time of year. I love December. I love Christmas. I love winter. So much. I’m so excited and hyped all the time. Yesterday, me and almost all my S named ladies went to the Southbank Winter Festival to drink mulled wine for advent and it was so fun. Plus really pretty. The Southbank looks beautiful and festive. There’s this igloo outside the Hayward gallery which is literally so cute and pretty. And a bicycle powered light up tree. And so much good food. I had the world’s tastiest lamb burger with harissa and garlic mayo and it was so good. It might not actually have been the worlds best – that may well be the mulled wine and festive cheer talking. It was really good though. So good I could literally smell how bad my breath was and didn’t even care. I ended up getting pretty drunk, but not too drunk. Siblets on the other hand…. Well…

So anyway, I should probably try sleep if I can. Plus this massively horrible, seriously racist and really fucking irritating woman just showed up at my door (unannounced) and I have to rescue the Ma from her because none of us can stand her. Daughterly duty and all.

So last night I called the HTT crisis line because I was so worked up and distressed and I’d just got off the phone to the Ex and I felt out of control and fast and mean and basically the whole world sucked and I blamed treatment.

I literally have nothing normal left in my life anymore. Since starting treatment over a year ago I’ve only lost things. I’ve lost thing after thing till now I’ve got nothing nice left. The only thing I’ve gained is a bunch of professionals that are paid to pretend to care about me, but make it pretty fucking clear they don’t give a fuck. I didn’t feel safe.

I told them I never wanted anyone to come to my house again. The guy I was speaking to is actually nice and he got worried. I told him I’d lost everything and that having people barely conceal their contempt for me only hurt me more and I didn’t want any part of it ever again. I told him I wanted out of it all and I didn’t feel safe and they weren’t helping and everything in my life has just be getting worse and worse. This went on for a little while and he eventually agreed to the HTT calling me instead of visiting this morning and told me he cared and was worried and would listen and I should call him back if I needed to.

I didn’t call back. Instead I self harmed. It was quite severe, but I managed it with my now expert injury first aid and eventually felt better enough to fall asleep at about 4am.

I then get woken up by the HTT knocking on my door, and not just them, but also my new key worker from CDAT. I got so angry and told them over and over I didn’t want them there and had been told they wouldn’t come and they refused to leave because I had to talk to the CDAT woman and I hate her and I hate them and they lied and I wasn’t dressed and I hate every single part of my mental health treatment.

After they left, I called the HTT and asked them never to come back again and I didn’t want anymore treatment from them. They lied to me and didn’t care and they make me hurt more. Apparently they’re going to call me this afternoon, but I don’t even think they will seeing as they are full of lies and don’t give a shit. They talked about sectioning me if I didn’t comply with them, but I can’t even see how they have the power to do that. You need like two psychiatrists to section someone, and it’s not like any of them talk to each other. Like this morning I was told they’d come back this evening, then on the phone I was told they’d come back tomorrow morning. None of them have any fucking clue what the plan for my treatment is. I doubt they could get two psychiatrists in the same fucking room.

I then called the CMHT to asked to be discharged from them. The Psychiatrist is on leave so I can’t leave them till next week.

Following that, I called the Psychologist and left a message for him to call back. He didn’t, so I left a subsequent message saying I never wanted to see him again. He eventually called back and said he “hopes I turn up and he won’t discharge me yet” and said he’ll leave it in my hands to contact him if I don’t go. I’m most angry with him because he pretends better than everyone else. And if he didn’t tell me the Ex was a cunt, I’d probably still have someone to love me. If he hadn’t told me it was ok to take time out of uni, I’d probably have a fucking degree. If he hadn’t told me I needed further help, none of the other fucking teams would be involved. And he called my fucking parents. How am I supposed to trust him?

I can’t get in touch with IMPART because I didn’t save their number and I’ve swapped phones. Imma try get their number from someone else, but I don’t know who yet. I fully intend to leave their services as well.

CDAT can go spin to be honest. I told her as much, but she made an appointment for me anyway. I’m not going to go. She said if I don’t go, she’ll call, but it’s not like I have to reply. Calls from mental health treatment places always come up as private numbers so its pretty easy to know which ones to ignore.

I then called uni to ask to formally drop out, but I have to talk to my personal tutor before I can do that and he’s not in so I emailed.

I want to be out of treatment now. Out for good. All I’ve got from treatment is a worse life. All I had left was my fucking degree and that’s gone now so fuck it. If I’d never started treatment, I probably could have aced a dissertation by now and be finished and not care that all my friends hate me and my family think I’m disgusting because I’d be pretty and small and that would be enough and I’d have a boy and future. Instead, I’ve complied with everything asked of me and have essentially lost everything. I make the Fam cry, the Brother always chooses others over me when I really need him, my friends all think I’m rubbish and weird, the Ex treats me rubbish and I hurt him and the DVIP people keep calling me to tell me how shit he is and he calls me to tell me how shit they are and now I’ve lost uni. The one fucking normal thing I had left.

So fuck them all. I did as I was told and tried and now I’m angry and alone and have horrendous withdrawal symptoms. I keep having panic attacks and can’t focus or sleep and get tremors all over and I fucking hate every part of ever having entered treatment. So I no longer have an eating disorder? It’s not like I have anything else.

It hurts me more to be surrounded by people who pretend they care then it does to be alone. It’s better to not have it rubbed in your face that the most important thing you do is provided by people who think you’re worthless. Fuck them all. Seriously.

So today I had my first session in “Coping Skills Group”. To be fair, it wasn’t much of a ‘group’ seeing as it was only me… It’s in a different psychiatric hospital to where my EDU is as there isn’t an eating disorder service in my local NHS foundation trust, but it is similar as its where all the inpatient units are for the area and stuff. The biggest difference is that it’s huge, in an area you can’t wait to leave and seriously confusing. The buildings have different names to the signs, it’s next door to a standard hospital so the site is extra confusing and there’s no one to help you.

I was super late, but once I’d finally found the IMPART building, there wasn’t even a receptionist. There was a reception, but no one in it. I had no idea where I was going and the hallways were massive and echoey and empty and I had no idea where I was going. I started asking the few random people I bumped into what to do, but no one knew. I eventually found someone willing to direct me to the psychological services reception and waiting area and a really kind woman walked me for about 10 minutes to the room I was meant to be in. That’s why there was no one else there. No one could find it. There were lots of messages and calls during the meeting with people saying they’d left with no idea where to go. Apparently the main receptionist at the hospital and the IMPART receptionist were all made redundant in the last round of cuts, which is actually a bit of an issue for a hospital that big. The group facilitator is going to try iron out these issues though so hopefully that’ll mean next week there’ll be a few more people there.

It was quite cute though. They had biscuits and Quality Streets and tea and herbal tea and coffee and lemonade and milk and hot chocolate and Fanta. They gave me a list of rules which included “if you need to take a break, feel free to just go outside for a few minutes. One of the facilitators will check in with you to make sure you’re ok” which I thought was sweet.

Regardless of who was there, it’s actually really impacted upon me. We basically went over what the diagnosis really means and how I felt about it when I was first told about it and how my feelings have changed over time and what I knew about the disorder in general. It was a bit weird because it was just me, but they asked me a lot of questions and things and I think maybe it was useful. I duno though.

Basically, they went through a few of the symptoms with me and explained them in a non-personal, but more explicit way than I’ve been told before. They basically laid out how a borderline mind processes emotions and think, then compared that to the way non-borderline people think. It finally really clicked. It was like they were writing out my entire brain on a white board, with charts and graphs. Impulsivity, negative ways of regulating emotions, constantly changing obsessions with people and ideas etc. It was all there. It was exactly me.

At first I found it kinda comforting. It was comforting to know that I really couldn’t have made this whole thing up. This wasn’t lies. It helped me put together stuff I’d never been able to understand or articulate. It was bizarre. I felt like I was being understood.

Then I started to freak out. I’ve been kinda hanging on to the hope that it wasn’t true. That I had made it up and I wouldn’t be so wrong. I know this isn’t true, but the label of ‘personality disorder’ makes me think I’m broken. Broken so far beyond how I’ve felt before. If I’m not borderline, then I’m just a bad person and being bad is better than being broken. Being bad doesn’t need to be fixed. Broken is something that just doesn’t work at all. I hate it. I know it doesn’t change things really, I just hadn’t taken in the reality of it all until today. I just hate it. I burst into tears whilst walking my pup. It was horrible. I’ve feel so fucking hopeless. I don’t want to be this way. It’s like I’ve suddenly seen just how different my thought processes and emotions are from what they should be and it hurts me. It’s actually physically painful inside my bones and organs.

So now I sit and wait and try to just ride it out. I’ve got therapy tomorrow so maybe that’ll help. Chain smoking and watching way too much Heroes and hoping that tonight I might be able to sleep. Again. Except I feel like dirt and everyone and everything makes me hurt. I don’t like this whole new treatment thing. I’m done with my EDU and I know that, but I don’t want it to change. I don’t want a new therapist and I know tomorrow I’ll have to talk about winding therapy down in preparation for change. It took me ages to like my therapist. Ages and ages. Most people in the world are kinda idiots. I know that’s a stupid way to look at people, but I think it’s true. The Psychologist isn’t an idiot. He’s really nice and really smart and he really tries to look out for me and he gets my humour and he’s not an idiot. He’s not a simp, he’s not at all new age-y, he’s doesn’t go on and on about all that “aww it’s so hard. Compassion, love blah blah blah etc.”

Except now I have to meet someone else and hope they’re not an idiot. The problem is that they probably will be. I don’t want to get to know someone new. I like who I have. Not that I’d ever tell him that obvs.

I feel so disgusting. I’m scared and lonely. I’m not sure I’m ready for all this. :(

Also, I’m going to add this. It might seem silly, but actually a lot of people have asked me this, or assumed it. Borderline personality disorder isn’t the border between a normal and disordered personality. It got the name a long time ago. Apparently it comes from the idea that BPD was thought of as the borderline between psychosis and neurosis. We know better now and it’s thought of as its own, distinct mental health problem. It’s not borderline anything. In fact, there is a movement at the moment to rename it as ’emotional and unstable personality disorder’ (in the U.K.) or ’emotional dysregulation disorder’ or something (in the U.S.). Just to clear that up for anyone who doesn’t know.

Firstly, I had an appointment with the Psychiatrist at my EDU. Obviously, I was weighed. It was down from last time by a few kilos, but I think that’s due to natural variation due to time of the month, what I’d eaten etc. Still well within the healthy range though. My BMI has settled to a healthy 21 (ish), regardless of what I eat or how much I exercise. I’m getting a whole load better at understanding my hunger signals – I eat whatever, whenever. Today I even had a greasy spoon sausage baguette (don’t judge me. It’s literally one of my favorite foods. Deep fried, bad quality sausage in a buttered white baguette tastes so boom its almost obscene) which is something I never thought I’d ever eat again. The Psychiatrist was so pleased with my progress. She said it was really surprising considering some of the shit I’ve had to deal with whilst with them, yet I stuck with the treatment plan fairly consistently for an eating disorder patient and that she’s really impressed with my perseverance. She has pronounced me eating disorder free! I know that my eating is something I have to keep my eye on (probably forever) as relapses are common and eating disorder behaviours can sneak back in or manifest themselves in different ways, but right now, I live basically eating disorder free. It’s actually really good. Life is a lot less tense. Plus I actually am getting used to my body and don’t entirely hate it. I’m almost sad that summer is over because I can’t wear crop tops as much any more. Today I did wear an incredibly tight, incredibly short black dress though so it’s not like I’m ashamed of my body. I don’t even think I’m that big. I look big sometimes, other times not so much. I eat what I like, but I don’t want to eat everything. I don’t have weird cravings to eat all the dried fruit or all the calcium or all the nut butter or all the honey. Some of my recovery foods seem a little bit sickly now. It’s ok though. I don’t always want biscuits or chocolate or chips, but when I do, I can eat them happily. I can and do eat whatever I like, yet I don’t actually want to eat everything, all the time. I didn’t think it’d ever be possible again. Sometimes I eat so much cake I feel a bit sick, but I don’t purge and my weight doesn’t change and it doesn’t upset me too much. Sometimes I don’t eat enough, so I grab some extra fruit or have some cereal or whatever. It is entirely possible to get to this point. You’d think it wasn’t, but it is. I’m even losing my food morality things. I used to thrive in the moral superiority in eating low-calorie, low-fat, lots of veggies, lots of fibre, lots of fruit, or nothing at all, especially when other people are eating around me. Now I’ll happily munch on some chips smothered in salt and pepper in front of everyone I know. I’ll even make chip sandwiches because they are too lovely (carbs go so well with other carbs I swear). It’s not hard to order something I know is higher calorie than what people around me eat. The best bit is that I don’t think about food or plan food or count calories 24/7. And my fat is redistributing a bit. My belly isn’t too big – it’s kinda soft and nice. My arms look so much healthier it’s ridiculous. I actually think my legs are well buff, even though my thighs definitely touch, almost entirely.

So yer, I’ve basically been discharged from my EDU. I never have to be weighed by anyone but myself for the forseeable future and that makes me happy. I hate other people weighing me. I like to weigh myself first thing, naked, before a shower which might be weird, but it’s entirely fine because it doesn’t disrupt my life at all. I’m just more comfy when I’m at my lowest possible weight of the day, but I’m also fine with the fact that that weight will increase as the day goes on, I just don’t have to see it. I’m never going to see my EDU psychiatrist or dietitian or family therapist again. It actually makes me happy. The only reason I’m not fully discharged is because I’m still seeing the Psychologist until I’m under the care of a more appropriate service because he thinks it’s crucial that I have regular contact with mental health services. I’m a “high risk” and “unstable” patient so the NHS have to know whether I need urgent intervention or crisis care. As soon as I’m under more appropriate care though, I’ll be out of the EDU. Hopefully forever. I’ll be really sad when I lose the Psychologist, but I’m happy to be out of the rest of it because I honestly don’t feel like I belong there anymore. It took over a year, but I just don’t think I need their help any longer. I am thankful to them in every way though. I know lots of people have terrible experiences of eating disorder (and mental health more generally) treatment on the NHS, but I can really only sing their praises. There are obviously issues with waiting lists and being able to contact your psychiatrists and stuff, but without their treatment, I’d probably still be sick. The treatment the offered me was all in line with the best evidence based treatment I’ve learnt and researched about. I had regular contact with everyone on my team, there was a heavy focus on refeeding as the single most important aspect of initial treatment, an emphasis on reaching a BMI over 20 and flexible care that tailored around my needs as they changed. They’ve been so brilliant. I literally could not see a way out of anorexia, but with their help I found one and I’m all the better for it.

So now I’m no longer classified as having anorexia nervosa or an eating disorder or disordered eating or anything. I’m ‘recovered’ or ‘in remission’ or however you’d like to put it and I intend to stay that way. Ker-fucking-ching.

Today was also the day of my initial assessment for IMPART. It was basically a screening for all axis II disorders, so all the different personality disorders were checked for. I can officially say that I don’t have antisocial or narcissistic or schizotypal or histrionic or avoidant or dependant or schizoid or paranoid or obsessive compulsive personality disorders. That is good news. That’s so many mental health problems I don’t have to worry about.

However, I did finally receive an official diagnosis. Only a personality disorder specialist psychiatrist can officially diagnose personality disorders and now, it’s official – I have borderline personality disorder. Although I already knew that, I kinda hoped it would turn out to not be true and that a specialist would tell me I was fine. I also hoped they’d tell me it was true so I could be given the hope that I might one day have a better quality of life. It’s a mixed bag of emotion. Apparently I score very highly on the borderline part of the test and am considered to be “severely affected” by the disorder. I guess I knew that already, but I hate when people say it. The assessment was over two hours long. It was seriously hard work and incredibly stressful, but I got through it.

So now I’m on another waiting list – this time for a psychologist to become free to take on my treatment. Apparently its six to eight weeks, though it could be shorter because I was one of the earlier ones to receive a round one assessment after the summer break and they still have a lot behind me. The psychologist may decide that I’m not suitable for treatment with IMPART at all so again, it’s scary. I tend to think that everyone will see that I’m not deserving of help so I always assume people will think I’m completely fine and don’t need their help and be told to go away. The second assessment tries to work out what the best course of treatment is for each individual. It also screens for any axis I mental health problems which may need to be treated before treatment for BPD can begin. Thankfully, because many people with personality disorders have suffered trauma, PTSD won’t rule me out, and because substance abuse is high in people with BPD, that won’t rule me out either. Both are treated within the service. If, for example, I was still suffering with anorexia, that would have to be treated for that first so IMPART wouldn’t take me on. I don’t consider myself depressed (even though I have that diagnosis right now) and I don’t think anxiety would be too much of an issue for them as it’s probably part of the BPD package. Seeing as I have no other diagnosis and don’t think anything else is wrong with me, I hope it’ll be ok. I’m worried about it though. If they take me on, I could be offered 6, 12 or 18 months treatment of CBT or DBT, but the woman who assessed me thinks it’s pretty likely I’ll be offered 12 or 18 months DBT, considering my high risk behaviours and BPD score level, with options to continue treatment if necessary after the completion of the initial time frame. That’ll involve a weekly group session and a weekly individual session. There’s also a possibility I’ll be put into other group therapies like mindfulness group or anxiety group, but that’ll be worked out at the next assessment. She also thinks my treatment will involve regular telephone consultations with whoever my psychologist ends up being. It all sounds pretty intense and apparently it’s actually a lot of hard work, but so was my eating disorder treatment so I’m hopeful I can manage it.

For now though, I have been given her work mobile number to contact her with any queries or questions, either through call or text. I’ve also been invited to join a group session specifically designed for people in this phase of treatment – all the people with personality disorders who are waiting for their second round of assessments. I don’t know if I’ll go yet. It’s quite far away from my house and in an area I don’t know that well and I get pretty scared in places I don’t know. It’s essentially a starter group for CBT and DBT style treatments and to get comfortable working in a group, as well as keeping in contact with the service in order to remain more likely to comply with treatment. We’ll see I guess. I also got a self-help pack. No lie – the NHS have stated that if I’m feeling distressed, I can comfort myself by smoking a cigarette. They also suggest making a secret code, smashing a watermelon, having a polo, trying to wake up before lunch time, building a house of cards, staying in bed, eating chocolate, asking a friend to hold me and creating my own cartoon legend (yes they did use the word legend). There are other things as well, but those are the strangest. There’s also some stuff on relaxation exercises, emotional health and mindfulness in it, as well a lot of numbers to call in a crisis. I got given a crisis card to keep with me as well (in case I ever need to contact crisis services out and about).

All in all, it’s been a very emotional, hard, happy and stressful day. So much to think about – both good and bad. I’m both optimistic and devastated. Excited and anxious. Happy and sad. It’s a lot to take in and I think I might need a little bit of time to recover from it all. Lots of sleep and puppy times ahead I hope.

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Basically, I password some of my posts. I do it because this blog was designed for, and therefore read by, people in my real world. Rarely, I'll blog about things I'm not all that comfy sharing yet. However, if you're interested in having a looksy, give a shout in a comment somewhere and chances are, I'll give it to you. Sozzles.